Tag: flowers

May 29th – Meanwhile, further on near the Pier Street Bridge, a chance to catch up with the flowers whose photos turned out badly the day before. Clover, the unsung hero of the pasture, meadow and verge is always beautiful, but very overlooked. Nutritious in fodder and attractive to bugs and butterflies, clover does it’s violet thing pretty much unnoticed. 

Another very common flower that goes unremarked is the ribwort plantain – it’s brown flower heads with the white corona don’t look like flowers, but they are. Exceedingly prolific this year, they’re everywhere that grass grows. As kids, we’d pick them at the base of the stalk and play conkers with them. I think they’re fascinating, and demontrate the utter diversity of plant life in the UK.

The damp conditions may not be improving my humour any, but that slug looks in fine fettle. Much misunderstood creatures, that I think are actually rather interesting.

May 28th – I took loads of photos of flowers on the canal bank tonight. They looked super in the rain.

Sadly, the lens had an unnoticed rain smear on it and they were all terrible. Such is life.

I did manage to record more marsh orchids. Not sure if they’re the same kind as the northern marsh orchids of yesterday – these are some way away – but they look similar. I’m fascinated by them, as they seem to be recent arrivals here. I’m sure I’d have noticed such a gorgeous flower before. 

Thanks to Susan, Guest and Indesperateneedofsomeadventures for wildflower identification corrections and advice yesterday. I’ve come to the conclusion I’ll never be any cop with botany. I really am useless with the flowers.

However, I have decided my guide book is cobblers – I’m using the Collins Guide, and the pictures are too small (which explains maybe why I default to mallow!) – what guide would folks recommend? The internet isn’t much use for identifying flora and fauna.

Suggestions gratefully received!

May 19th – In Telford for the day, and what a day it was. Bright, warm and sunny, the flowers and greenery have come on here apace. I noticed my first ox eye daisies of the year, replete with spiders, and cotoneaster in flower, still with some berries from last year. I’ve never seen that before – the fruit is beloved by blackbirds and other songbirds, but the shrub is so prolific here, and the crop so abundant last year that I just don’t think there were enough birds to eat it all.

It makes an attractive display, for sure…

April 29th – It really is all about the flowers for me at the moment. I miss them so much in winter, it’s fantastic to have this roadside splashes of colour back in my life.

Spotted returning from Sutton this evening, just minding their own business on a roadside verge: the most dramatic red tulips and (I think) delicate, pink clematis.

I’m never the fastest cyclist around, and every journey takes longer at this time of year as I have to keep stopping and looking at the flowers…

April 16th – It’s all about flowers at the moment. I was in Telford for the first time for a couple of weeks, and spring has come on incredibly fast in the intervening period. As ever, the bed of tulips and other flowers at Telford railway station is incredible – but the daffodils – now going over a bit – were gorgeous at Hortonwood. It was sunny, and warm, and the wind seems to be dying a bit at long last. As I ground my way up Shire Oak Hill late afternoon, I noticed the first Spanish bluebells in the hedgerow by Lanes Farm. 

This was worth the wait.

April 11th – A great day up until 4pm, then all hell broke loose. I returned home late, and was doubly slain by two separate punctures. I didn’t mind too much though, as the air was warm, the sun was out and well, it could have been worse.

What better than daffodils to cheer you up? The displays this year on Walsall’s verges and greenspaces have been terrific. This patch in Shelfield has been particularly gorgeous.

My compliments and thanks to the people who plant and tend them. They cheered up one weary, beleaguered cyclist this evening.

April 9th – This… this, it’s remarkable.

   

I was shooting along the towpath, in the part of Spaghetti Junction where there’s a covered, cavernous tunnel over the canal. It’s dark under there; and eerie. It can be a little scary – there is no electric light there, and the only daylight is from the portals and small, irregular metre-square apertures in the roof, that let in shafts of sunlight. It’s a very odd, otherworldly spot.

I cycle through here generally without stopping. But today, a patch of yellow caught my eye in the admitted beam of light. 

I stopped. I backed up. I stood, open mouthed.

   

Hundreds, possibly more than a thousand daffodils in small jars. Each with water in, in the circle of light. Decaying, gone over. Placed with what must have been care, it would have taken a large effort to get them and the jars to that spot. It’s not accessible. It would have perhaps taken a boat… or some climbing. But why? Was it art? Obsessiveness? 

I was captivated. The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s stunning. 

   

When I got home, I looked at the pictures. I puzzled over them. I asked twitter: twitter knew. Thanks to @nebolland, @kenofski, @brumcyclist and @cybrum who enlightened me.

It turns out it’s art. It was carried out by artist, art world enfant terrible and extraordinary publicist Bill Drummond, once of the KLF. 

Read about Bill and his Birmingham project here.

You can say what you like, that had a massive impact on me. That was bloody genius. I have total respect for it.

April 5th – I wasn’t feeling great. I wasn’t down anymore, but I felt achey and muzzy like I had a cold coming, the weather was grey and windy, and I contented myself with a trip to Chasewater. On the way I passed the remarkable shrine to Jamey Coleman, who was tragically killed here in a hit and run incident a week before.

It pulled me up short. Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many tributes.

Please – if you know anything at all about this incident – no matter how inconsequential you think it may be, please do contact the police. 

Please see their appeal here.

April 4th – I broke free after lunch and had time to kill in Walsall. It wasn’t a particularly bright afternoon, but I headed up to the church and memorial gardens as I hadn’t been up there in a long while. The Memorial Gardens were as I remembered them; quiet, peaceful, solitary and beautiful. Slightly down-at-heel, but no less beautiful for it, the flowers there are just kicking off. I have great memories of this little-known spot, but while I was here, it occurred to me that somewhere in the intervening years between my discovery of this wonderful place and the present here and now, that either Walsall had lost me, or I had lost Walsall.

These places, these streets, used to feel like mine. I used to haunt them. I knew them well, the shops, pubs, cafes. Today, although I pass through regularly, I don’t know any of it anymore. I still get the geography. But I’ve lost the sense of belonging. 

The horizon I could see from here today over the dull, overcast town was the same horizon, but changed, I saw three decades ago. But somewhere, inbetween that place and this, I exchanged that whole wide world for other horizons.

I wept a bit. But you can’t go back; I can no longer class this place as mine. But there are other places, and this will always, always be a part of me.

For better, or for worse.

March 26th – I cycled to work in bright sunshine, but it felt bitterly cold, although I guess it wasn’t, really. Since it was so nice I took a quick loop of Kings Hill Park in Darlaston. It’s a credit to the people who work hard to maintain it. The spring flowers are gorgeous, the planters are shaping up well and the the place is clean and tidy.

It’s such a shame that Oak Park in Walsall Wood can’t get a fraction of this kind of dedication. A real shame indeed.